"Card w or w/o Dice driven activation " Topic

*Optional* of course :)

Am of the opinion that Johnny Reb games do not need any artifical chaos. The commanders themselves and the combat die rolls do enough of that.

I do not like using cards to set turns. I once played a ACW game where we spent 2 hours to set up terrian and Units. The game finished in less than 2 hours. The Conf had 10 turns in a row the Union had 2 then The Conf had 4 turns Then the end turn card came up and the turn ended. In the second turn a similar thing happened,. The Union lost . WE play WAR GAMES. A card game turn system has LITTLE FUN and I do not play them.

GNREP wrote: "seeing a 'barbarian' type army moving forward in perfectly dressed lines like the Prussian Army looks wrong (but of course perhaps a Prussian 7YW army should have a very high liklihood of being able to keep nice and symmetrical)"

Great example. Yes, maybe barbarian armies should roll for activation. But if you have no problem with 7YW Prussians staying "nice and symmetrical", then you should really have no problem with Napoleonic or ACW forces staying "nice and symmetrical"… the vast majority of the time.

FatherOfAllLogic, in line with Oschmidt was saying, it could work something like this…
to continue with my previous example from JR, if one has a corps commander onboard they could role for a "the hits the fan" card. Like on a 12 they have to draw from a stack of cards. One of those cards could be "Your opponent gets to change an entire brigade's orders to CH" or they "get to move an entire brigade of yours a full move in a randomly rolled direction" or "all of your artillery batteries immediately go low on ammo". At the same time the brigade and division commanders would roll for Grand Tactical Order Receipt. In essence, the higher up the command chain you go with a poor roll, the greater the deviation in the plan.

Oschmidt wrote: "All of them COULD be used in a table top game-- provided-- the GM or Umpire lies."

I would disagree to the extent that 3 out of the 4 examples you give could be set up in a scenario without needing for anyone to lie. Just use very specific scenario deployments and/or SSR's to make the player in the disadvantageous position fight his way through or out of it.

The other part of it is using flat out Hidden Placement where you draw your force deployments on maps prior to play…they can't move or they are fully or partially revealed onboard…. that's what ASL does. Use it in combination with rules for concealment as well if you like and potentially no need for an umpire. Using REAL Hidden Placement with units of one side or the other entirely unseen can make for some great surprises.

Great example. Yes, maybe barbarian armies should roll for activation. But if you have no problem with 7YW Prussians staying "nice and symmetrical", then you should really have no problem with Napoleonic or ACW forces staying "nice and symmetrical"… the vast majority of the time.

------------
fair enough – though personally I still like the curve ball (or googly since I am British) that the odd event can throw in – one advantage of gaming historical battles (or trying to since the scale is bound to be distorted in terms of what one can get on an average table) is that one can factor in the behaviour of individual commanders -
e.g. at Fontenoy the hesitancy of Ingolsby ( 'Ingolsby had explicit orders from the Duke to capture the Redoubt of Eu, and either spike the guns or turn them on the enemy. At around 06:00 Ingolsby moved his brigade forward, but he halted in a 'hollow way' a short distance from the wood. Here he remained, telling Lord Bury (one of Cumberland's six aides-de-camp), "that he saw troops in the wood, that he did not know the number of them, and had consulted with his officers, who were of opinion it was impracticable." These 'troops in the wood' were the Grassins, a combination of light infantry and light cavalry who tenaciously defended the position against the Allied attack. Ingolsby continued to falter and hesitate. He asked for cannon before he advanced and was immediately sent three six pounders but he still made no attack.')

No gamer is going to do something like that.

As said, one can perhaps build it in to historical scenario and the problem then is, that in a turn up and play game, troops and esp generals behave to 'manufacturers guidelines' and don't faff about (assuming the gamer is himslf not an Ingolsby) so that their performance becomes better than it ever was historically
The other area that I still struggle with in IGOUGO is that whoever gets the initiative can do so much damage that it can skew the game esp in periods with longer range weapons (had some examples in ECW games where the intiial artillery absolutely tore holes in the other side who had yet to move – whereas when they came to fire back the other sides troops were already more dispersed having moved. In truth both sides would be firing more or less simultaneously on many occasions.

I'd agree with the above of Warstephen that a game where it dominates in the way he describes is not fun or in any way anywhere near realistic (unless you are portaying maybe the Sikh Army etc where it seemed their ruler wanted to get his army destroyed and I suppose certain other extreme examples of supine command), though I'd say don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and generalise to every card based system

Just a comment about having control of your troops. I'll make the bold statment that commanders of professional armies always had control of their troops.

I've retired from a career in management, engineering and manufacturing. If there was an area (a process step in making things, or a group of people doing a mission) that really HAD to be in good control,,, guess what. You spent the resources to assure that that area WAS in control. If it took micro-mananging, that is what was done. If it took daily reports, so be it. If it took assigning somebody extra to supervise the project as a full-time job, that was done. The guy in overall charge had the power and resources to get that done. Sometimes, if there was a rush or if resources were limited, risks would have to be taken.

Likewise in a professional army, if the troops have to march slower to stay in control, then that was done. (hint: look up the battle march speeds in the drill books for the Napoleonic era). If more aides were needed, they were detailed. If complicated maneavuers were likely to go awray, they were not done.

Where the element of chance comes in, within your own army, is where there are officers that fail to execute. Where unsteady troops have to be used. Where initiative has to be exercised by sub-commanders and they do the wrong thing or an unexpected thing. The cases where there are not enough aides or time to keep things under control.

What I don't like about the "cards system" is that they assume that chaos rules in every case- even when plenty of time and effort has been spent on a well-planned action. Rule sets that have sub-units following written orders, but allow them to independantly change their order, with some risk of a screwup, seem to hit things about right.

NB Fontenoy is one of those battles that the Daily Mail writers and readers, bought up on a diet of Agincourt and Waterloo etc seem never to have heard of, when sniping as they periodically do at the French and their courage (not that they have heard of Verdun 1916 either)

Where the element of chance comes in, within your own army, is where there are officers that fail to execute. Where unsteady troops have to be used. Where initiative has to be exercised by sub-commanders and they do the wrong thing or an unexpected thing. The cases where there are not enough aides or time to keep things under control.

What I don't like about the "cards system" is that they assume that chaos rules in every case- even when plenty of time and effort has been spent on a well-planned action. Rule sets that have sub-units following written orders, but allow them to independantly change their order, with some risk of a screwup, seem to hit things about right.
----------------------------
I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that though I think that defining professional is another question. Also how does one define control – officers failing to execute orders or doing the wrong thing – surely that's then a failure of control.
Equally I have to say that my experience of control in big organisations leads me to being a proponent of the cock-up theory of history in general (and hence a virulent opponent of those who (not here) have such an overarching belief in control that they can only credit things going wrong to sinister conspiracies etc).

Dear Bottom Dollar

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I think that it is important to note that in the hobby everyone has a different view of things and a theory of "the way things happend" and a set of requirements of "how things happen in games."

My own system of OGABAS (Oh God! Anything But a Six) uses TWO systems of movement. The first time is where you want to fiddle with individual units which is where each unit has a "move" value which is representing its ability to perform the standard battlefield maneuvers and in fact -- move itself in a meaningful military manner, in formation in the way desired etc. This can range in value from 1 to 5. There are modifiers if a unit has a general officer attached to it, and the officer can add his ability to any ONE of the values of a unit in a turn. So if you have a line infantry unit (1 or 2 to move) and the general officer is a 3, you can raise it to moving on a 1 to 5. You could also put two or three one-rated officers to do the same, but in all cases you lose any modifications over a 5. The unit can have damage markers on it (I do not remove figures or stands) and these can be minus' but again, no unit can be reduced to less than a 1. So hence, the name of the Rules, "Oh God! Anything but a six!" Anyway, you can use this movement system, which works well.

There is a SECOND movement system called the maneuver. In this you can total up ALL officers within 1 measure of each other (a measure is 8") and roll against THAT score (again the total cannot be more than 5) If you make the roll of 1 to 5 you can move ANY AND ALL units within 1 measure of the officers. Thus you could move an entire WING of the army to attack an enemy wing or units, or however you wished. If you fail however NO UNIT can can move in that stated group and the officers can't be used for anything else this turn.

Now… you couple this with the initiative system which allows the guy with initiative to move as far as he wishes (regardless of type of troop) so long as he doesn't come into contact with rough terrain, or within 8" of an enemy unit (which terminates movement) then you can see that things can move very very fast. BOTH sides then are looking at different things. The defender or guy without initiative is looking at terrain to hold up the sweeping moves, stationing SCUM (light infantry) pickets on the flanks to stop the enemy, and arranging his men to take every advantage of terrain while holding a reserve, is different from the guy WITH initiative who is looking to get around the flank or mass on one flank and overpower the enemy quickly before he can respond. The defender, being much more restricted in movement (one measure for infantry, two for cavalry) cannot initially respond, HOWEVER as there is a sliding scale of keeping the initiative, should he lose it during one turn, the defender may then take it over and make a riposte, and if he has carefully husbanded his reserves- he can rout the enemy from the field.

How the initiative works is simple. The game starts off with one side having it, but that's simply for game start up. Each side is given six initiative cards. These have on them a 1-6, 1-5, 1-4, 1-3, 1-2, 1. Each turn the guy WITH initiative, can play ONE of these cards to roll on to KEEP the initiative. If he rolls within the range he keeps it. If he rolls over the range he loses it to the other side who has it for that turn. NOTE only ONE side is rolling for initiative at any time, that is, the guy who HAD it from the last turn (which is why the guy who forced the battle from the campaign has it for the start. So assume he plays the 1 to 6. OK, he keeps it automatically. Then at the end of the turn the card is tossed to the discard. At the start of the second turn the highest card he has is a 1 to 5. Ok, if he rolls a 1 to 5, he has initiative for that turn. HOWEVER! If he rolls a 6 then it passes to the defender and the DEFENDER gets it for that turn (and will roll to try and keep it for the third turn. Note you can choose ANY of the cards still in your hand to roll on, but once used it goes to the discard. So you can see that the attacker must plan that he faces a decreasing possibility turn by turn that he will be able to have things go his own way, and there is going to come a time when the initiative will switch to the other side and if he hasn't planned for that… the defender may launch a devastating counter-attack. It's an IGOUGO but with a nasty backlash!

Note I have seen games where attackers trusted in their luck for the first turn and wanted to save their "Auto" 1-6 for later, and rolled a 6 on the first turn. They have always uttered the taunt to the gods "I'll win this one" and the angel of irony has then given them a complete drubbing.

But continuing from that aside, the system I developed above suits what I wanted in a game. Things can happen quickly- VERY quickly, and there is a lot of movement, AND both sides have to look at very different missions.

As if this wasn't enough there is an option EVENT DECK.

What this is is a deck of 144 cards which impose sometimes transient conditions on the game. For example, one card might demand one side roll on a "bolt from the blue" where a stray bullet might carry off a general officer. So for example the other side is allowed to nominate two general officers of your side. He rolls, a die, if a 1 is rolled the officer is killed and taken from the field. Other cards may be cards which increase unit abilities for the game or the turn by 1, other cards might be like "Unexpected Reinforcements." Someone marching to the sound of the guns enters the field from any area you wish that is allowed and the die roll on the card can bring in up to five units and 2 officers (or 1 officer). These cards can apply to either side or both. Some cards also allow THE ENEMY to move one, two or three of your units as he wishes.

The point is thatthere are many ways to get the effect you want, once you determine what that is.

The games that I use under this system tend to be large with about 60 units on the field maximum and ten officers on a side (though they can be as few as 7 with two officers. We get through these games in about four hours, with always one side or the other a clear victor, and a decision made, and it's excitement all through. There are wide seepoing movements and lots of intense fights, but we do that at a price! The game presupposes that players are generals of a wing of an army or the center, or the commanding general, so a lot of the minute folderol of most games (limbering or unlimbering, mounting dismounting, long lists of modifiers (and especially "national characteristics" along with facing and formation are simply tossed out.

The main point is that you have to have a clear idea of what level you are modelling.

A battle, or a military unit, is not like a factory or assembly line. That analogy does not hold true, sorry. I'm saying this as a former intelligence analyst who was in the invasion of Iraq in a brigade intel shop. Even in 2003, we used to say, man, if we're this inefficient, this screwed up, how bad does the other side have to be? And we were sitting in the middle of the end result of literally trillions of dollars of research and investment in information technology. Even with all of that, with all the intelligence apparatus we had, with all the sattelites, instant messangers, Microsoft Outlook, Power Point, various sorts of internets, with instant communication with all of the alphabet soup organizations in Washington DC, it was still a battle against chaos and the unknown. Now, if you're talking about a battalion, or a brigade maybe, then the commanding officer can have a decent amount of control, because he can see everything going, maybe, he can see where enemy fire is coming from, he can spot tactical situations on the ground as they develop. However, when combat is actually joined I would say that psychology becomes more important than the commanders will, and that the sergeants and line officers have more to do with the outcome than the commanding officer does. Furthermore, an officer is not in control of the missions he is given, or the orders he receives. These might not make any sense to him, because he might not see the rational for them form his own physical location. But he'll still have to follow them.

So I'll give you that, if you're playing a low level tactical game. If you zoom out to the army level, then you must exponetially multiply the chaos, the dawdling commanders, the unexpected by the size of the units involved. Even if you glance over one of Napoleons campaigns you can see how he made mistakes all the time, or was misinformed, or made a bad guess. And then he'd have his corps countermarching all over to rectify whatever situation needed rectifying. Look at the 1809 campaign,for instance, or the 1805-1807 campaigns. The larger the scale of the game, the more men the CiC has to rely upon to carry out orders, the more potential for chaos. In a lot of wargames this is sort of moot, because they take place at too small a scale. But then you get to the bigger problem with wargames generally I think, which is that if you zoom in too close the event at the local point is pre-determined, that is, by who got there "fastest with the mostests." You basically become a witness to the random unfolding of dice rolls. And while this is entertaining, I do not feel that it simulates command in any way. I go back to the kriegspiel. If you want to really play out the experience of command as close as you can get to it without real bullets flying around, get some guys together and do a reffed kriegspiel with everyone writing orders, sending reports and having it moderated by a team who have some idea of the history of the period.

So forwardmarchstudios…. we should close down West Point and randomly select people off of the street to be officers in battle for 4 weeks, and then replace them with new people. Nobody knows what is going on, things just happen, no officer has any control over what is to happen. There is not value in putting the right people, the right units and the right resourcs into play, because…….?

In response I opt to set fire to your straw man argument.

Dear 1968Billsfan

I too am in industrial management, and have been in it for nigh now 35 years. Eveything you say is true about that environment however, time and again we spent the resources, and the time, and manpower and guess what!? Time and again it was STILL futile!, and it still didn't work, and it was still a disaster. Oh to be sure, it wasn't as big a disaster as if we had done nothing and just assumed it would happen by fiat or divine intervention, but no project, no product, no move, no thing ever went smoothly which didn't have everyone on the team at some point slapping their foreheads and saying "OH CRAP!!! WE FORGOT ALL ABOUT THAT!!: or "Judas Priest!!! We had no idea that was going to happen!" And so we clambered and stumbled and scrambled around to throw fixes and band-aids on it to get through it and we did.

But we had one big advantage. No one was shooting at us.

Not only that, if you've really worked in management you know there are a dozen to a hundred times you've told some grand Oyah above you "Don't do that! if you do that this and that and the other thing will happen and it will be an unmitigated disaster!" And then they've gone and done it, and given you the blank stare when they ask why and you say "I told you so, and show them the memo's you sent to them and everyone saying it."

In any large bureaucratic organization be it an army a state, a social club, a church, a company, the complexities soon reach astronomical proportions such that not everything can be forseen, NOR do you often have the resources to forsee them. I've been in the army and it's no different from industry. Decisions are made on partial, imperfect and faulty information and just as often perfectly wonderful information is completely ignored because people don't want to hear it.

My point in this is simple. It is not always possible to assume the best, nor is it predictable, and this goes double when people are shooting at you!

I saw a microcosm of this in one game using written orders. I sent an order to one of my commanders which read EXACTLY like this. "Move the Cavalry Reserve next to the gun on the hill."

Sounds simple, direct-- couldn't possibly be misunderstood right!??

I had neglected to notice that there were two hills each with a gun on them, and of course… you know he chose the one I didn't want the cavalry on.

OSmidth,
I agree to a significant extent with what you say. My best (worse)memory is a fellow in another area was told to buy an old cheap machine to do a more advanced technology, because that was all the money that the chief's boyfriends would allocate. The poor victum knew that it couldn't do it. He pleaded. He brought in that company's experts who swore their tool couldn't do that job. He brought in people from other comapies in town, who swore the same. He showed the physics of the rector chamber and reaction rate of the process. He showed charts, data, competitive analysys, he threated to resign. He haunted the big guy………You guessed the ending. They bought that tool, it couldn;t do the job and the blame was "You didn't convince me that it wouldn't work."

However, yes shxx does hit the fan. But people in charge do not make their living by giving in to chaos and complete unpredictability at every step. People put resources into making sure things can get done most of the time in an expected manner. Soldiers listen to their saergant and march in step with one-another rather than in every direction. Orders are obeyed. Units with enemy in front of them usually shoot at the people who will try to kill them rather than whisle and stick their thumbs up. Units start the battle with a full load of ammunition. etc.

By the way, the companies that I worked for made money. Bad managers, who didn't make profits and screwed went elsewhere eventually. Patton said that orders are meant to be written not that they can be understood, but that they can not be misunderstood. Leaders often understand this. You cannot control what you don't know, but you can control what is under your control. The charge of the light brigade is famous not because it is what always happened, but because it was such an anonomoly.

So forwardmarchstudios…. we should close down West Point and randomly select people off of the street to be officers in battle for 4 weeks, and then replace them with new people. Nobody knows what is going on, things just happen, no officer has any control over what is to happen. There is not value in putting the right people, the right units and the right resourcs into play, because…….?
--------------
He's not saying that at all and you seem to be treating it as some kind of attack on the military to say that there is a lot of chaos and confusion in battle – from people I have spoken ref Afghanistan, one of the classic comments is 'things here are bad but the consolation is knowing that they are even worse on the other side'.
Of course generals won't admit it because either it gets filtered out before it gets to them (the organisation, with many ex forces people in it , I work for certainly does that, re. some of the potential 'there but for the grace of God' potential disasters that were avoided more by a pretty narrow margin)or because its not exactly good PR – I'm sure the people running Lehmann Bros thought it was all under control too

GNREP, sure you can simulate the case of Ingolsby. Make him pass a rolled MC in order to advance his units or on a roll of 12 he either refuses to advance his troops or orders them to fall back a move.

Thanks for the rundown on your game OSchmidt. Yes, a lot of mov't/initiative options. Interesting how you tie card and dice rolls together and I like how you have a zone of friction around units where things slow down.

ForwardMarch, new war ? Green troops ? Rushed into action on overseas deployment. Sounds like there were a lot of kinks to iron out. 1st Bull Run-ish. It would seem to me that even following that, when you're cycling troops in and out every year, by the time a unit really figures out how to operate that experience gets flown out. But in an asymmetrical conflict …. perhaps a little more margin for error than your average black powder conflict?

As I said earlier there are wars and battles from history where one side was seriously deficient on the "command and control" side in comparison to their enemy or even where both sides were seriously deficient. So, I do see a place for activation systems.

ForwardMarch, also interesting points about Kriegspiel. I'm not real familiar with it, but that may be the best way to simulate the 'feel' of being a single commander in a game.

Regarding 'chaos' in corporations and companies and units and whatnot… I'm willing to bet that 99% of it is a top down thing.

Kriegspiels are interesting, but they are very intensely right brain and do not really involve miniatures. They can also be very boring. They're more like a training tool. I've taken part in about a dozen in the military as a research assistant of some sort, I suppose. You need a lot of people to do one correctly, both a lot of players and a lot of refs. They can also take a lot of time to set up.

However, I think that they could be made more enjoyable if used as a new sort of wargame. I've had this idea before. Dungeons and Dragons was created by wargamers, and I think that wargamers would benefit by going back to that terrain. What I mean is, if people wanted a more accurate portrayal of military command on the table top, the basic model of player v. player needs to be changed. By having one player be the "red force" and a number of other players be the various commanders of the "blue force" a radically different game experience could be achieved.

First, you could solve all the damn rules lawyering by putting one person in total control, with the ability to make decisions on rules and events. That'd solve a lot of problems right there…

Then, you can fix the helicopter view issue, because the red player will be able to keep his own side hidden from view. He'll stay fair for the same reason that the dungeon master stays fair- if he doesn't he won't have many players around for very long. The game master in this case will create the scenario, create the OOBs, create the "problem" and also act as the players higher HQ.

This also locates the player as a single officer/character/personality and places him firmly in the action, as opposed to loosely in the action like in most rules (if that makes sense).

And, because the game can be played verbally and abstractly, the days and weeks of operational maneuvering before the game can be incorporated organically into the final clash on board.

The above ideas aren't that new, and they'd work with almost any ruleset already out there. And, plenty of people and groups already do something like this, if not exactly this way. I think that if a system that was a bridge between the role playing game and the wargame were created that combined the best of both worlds it would make for a very interesting synthesis.

But don't look at me to do it… because I'm not a role player… that's for nerds.

Kriegspiels are interesting, but they are very intensely right brain and do not really involve miniatures. They can also be very boring. They're more like a training tool. I've taken part in about a dozen in the military as a research assistant of some sort, I suppose. You need a lot of people to do one correctly, both a lot of players and a lot of refs. They can also take a lot of time to set up.
----------------
having taken in part in some organised many moons ago by Wargames Developments wargamedevelopments.org/, I'd agree that they are not really about pushing nice models around a table – I recall that we did I think Kursk and it was all maps, phones and no models in sight – good fun but not something I'd do too often

Dear 1968 Billsfan

Not arguing. Been in that situation as your friend with inadequate tool from both sides.

But it gets worse.

A bit of background. In addition to my career in Industrial management (or as we here affectionally call it, "toiling in the belly of the beast) I got my PhD in Early Modern Europan History. Got it late in life as a labor of love. My dual life therefore gives me interesting insights both ways.

Right now, if I want ANYTHING from the CEO of the company I have to get to him before 9:30 in the morning. The reason is that at 9:30 his secretary Kathy comes in and all he wants to talk about from then on through the whole day is "How good Kathy's (posterior) looks." He's completely worthless and basically runs the company as a sand-box. We have another joke here, that we make money in spite of our alphabet soup " (What we call people known as COO, CFO, CEO, blah blah blah).

So, from a historical perspective I feel for the people on the losing sides. Let's take the Duc De'Choiseul, there he is, with all the papers to send reinforcements to Canada, supplies to Montcalm etc., and he can't get to Louis XV before 9:30 and all Louis wants to talk about is how good Maitenon's (posterior) looks this morning."

Now… there's a hidden truth there.

You remember that I said that we make money IN SPITE of our cive Presients. The real truth is NOT to look just at the failures of any specific army, institution, or group, but its success. Even though it had a terrible record in the Seven Years War, there is a lot to be said for the French Army, and it was able to get a lot of things done, and one well. Much the same societies and nations somehow seem to mumble, stumble, shamble along even in the worst of times and they muddle through. We are trained to fixate on shortcomings simply because we are valued (both by those above us and by ourselves) as "problem solvers" and we all operate by the maxim "If it ain't broke Don't Fix it!" So we focus on the short comings. That means they loom large in our mind and we often don't see the things that are going right.

This frequently leads to inordinate effort to cure some small shortcomings which through the "law of unintended consequences" means we screw up or render ineffective something that is going right.

The point is that most things go right most of the time and most organizations are moderately effective at least in keeping themselves organized (otherwise they wouldn't be). That translates into war game terms that for the most part troops do what you want. It's in the big, huge, flashy, splashy things that go terribly wrong now and then that we focus, and many times those things could never have been anticipated or forseen, or even acted upon to be prevented if we had God himself at our right hand.

OSchmidt:

"The point is that most things go right most of the time and most organizations are moderately effective at least in keeping themselves organized (otherwise they wouldn't be)".

I agree entirely. I have read this great thread that amazingly, hasn't degenerated into name-calling and have learned quite a bit of different viewpoints.

While I don't remember the specifics of dozens and dozens of used-then-discarded rule sets, certain instances stand out. I get really irked having to roll for stupid things that the most minimal military training should have worked out such as this:

You have ten regiments in your column on the only road leading into the town that you are going to assault. Each regimental commander is forced to make a "command" roll to see what his regiment does. How much sense does this make when you roll two failures with one regiment about-facing and another going off on a tangent to the column? This is about the simplest evolution that you could possibly perform (follow the road) yet two out of ten regiments fail due to whatever the die roll was. IMHO, EXTREMELY unlikely to happen regularly in real life but it happens frequently on the table. This was a Napoleonic game as I recall.

Another instance that I recall from an ACW game was that everyone was forced to take an ammunition check after the first fire. I had a long line of veteran troops vs militia but I happened to roll about 2/3 to 3/4 of my units out of ammo and the enemy did not. This entailed all further fire at 1/2 effect and lost us the flank and the game from essentially the first turn of combat. We continued to play for the rest of the day but all agreed that the "out of ammo" rule decided the game instantly. I don't recall if it was a house rule of the ref but I vaguely think that we were using some flavor of Johnny Reb. Now why in the world would we be forced to take an immediate ammo check after the first fire? I don't remember what the specious justification was but it certainly screwed us and the game immediately.

This obviously can apply both to cards or event die rolls but IMHO, players can generally screw things up themselves without adding a high random factor for the "Fog-Of-War". I can see adding a little bit of this for "flavor" but when randomness trumps skill in the outcome of the game, I would have to ask myself "Why am I playing this?". If a card/random event materially affects the outcome of the game by overhadowing player direction of the course of the battle, I would say that my playing of that game was a waste of time.

On the other hand, I would also note that it would depend on the scale of combat that you are simulating such as a skirmish game say, in which your weapon jams. That would be an immediate, life-threatening and possibly fatal event. Not overly important on a larger scale but desperately so on a smaller scale :-) Just my .02

Dear Cloudy

I think that a lot of the problems you noted, and a lot of problems in rules period is that the designers have given little or no thought to the role of the player in the game.

I mean-- at what point does the gamer "enter" the game and what "role" does he have in the game. Let me give you an example. In my game, "Oh God! Anything But a Six!) which I freely described above the player is either the commanding general or a wing commander, commanding one of the major parts of the army, left, right or center. The game does not let you get out of that role, and when I was designing it I carefully asked myself- when I was going to add something in the rules "Is this something the commander of a wing of an army or the commanding general would normally deal with?"
If it was, then I would put it in to test it out. If it was not then unless it was required by the physical constraints of the game, I left it out. An example of this latter would be movement and the path a unit takes. Normally that's not up to the wing commander, it's the colonels, captains, lieutenants who did this. However, the little lads won't move by themselves (their legs aren't that flexible) so we have to do it. That's a necessity that is required by the physical constraints of the game. It's also not up to the generals to see if the troops are fed, or if Pvt Beitz has sharpened his flint, or Corporal Blowes is at his position three paces to the left right rear echelon of the leftmost company. That's the sergeants job.

So as I said that means a whole pile of folderol like limbering/unlimbering, mounting/dismounting/ charging if charged, etc. etc. blah blah blah can simply be dropped from the rules. We also droped most modifiers and there aren't even modifiers if your unit is attacked in the flank! This may seem bizarre but it really isn't. We assume the lieutenants, captains and sergeants in the unit do their job and refuse the flank or pivot the unit. This is what they did six days out of seven and we assume they can handle this on their own, so we simply allow a unit to face a flank attack.

Now being taken front and flank is different!

In the game you are allowed to apply your melee values onlly to the 45 degree angle infront of you, as well as your fire. So if you are facing one enemy unit, and another comes on your flank, you can only apply your values to the front and the flanking unit gets to apply its values to you and you don't have the chance to chose which unit to go against.

That may not seem like much, but things happen very fast in OGABAS and the reults of combat can be instantly catastrophic, so having an enemy heavy cavalry unit flanking you and adding its four extra mellee cards to the pile might contain an eliminated one and wipe out the whole unit. Doesn't matter what happened in the detail. maybe the unit fought bravel to the last man, maybe it turned and ran and was ridden down by the cavalry, or surrendered en masse- Doesn't matter- its gone. Make up whatever story you want in the report.

You as general only know that that fine bunch of lands you once counted on is now completely out of your plan and you have a grave situation to deal with.

I think the reason more designers don't pay careful attention to who the player represents is they'be become too influenced by the sources. When we read histories of battles we do not stay at one level. Histories commonly range up and down the scale showing us what's happening at the very top level, then work their way down to where Pvt. Bites is cursing himself because his flint won't work and he has a momentary panic and he turns to run. Corporal Bloez runs after him to force him back, and the squad sees Corporal Bloes retreating and think the order to go back has been given so they about face and start to retire. This sends a wave of panic through the regiment and they run. Now in stories we read about this all the time and game designers when they get to designing rules want to add as much "neat" stuff to their rules and so they lard them with a lot of detail and complication so that we might, actually see the point where Beitz and Bloez do their little dance and we can all emote over it. But the problem is that it requires playes not only to be wing commanders, but everyone down the line to the sergeant, and often-- Beitz and Blowes themselves.

Rather than worrying about flints and beans, facing and intervals I want to worry about saying something truly memorable for posterity to record like when Uxbridge Asked Wellington what his plan was and the Iron Duke replied "Why to beat the French, to be sure."

This is the reason long ago I stopped buying published rules. They never worked the way I wanted and I could have gotten a lot of neat troops for the $30 USD to $60 USD they cost.

Cloudy-
You're right. The tone of this discussion has been unusally, strangely.. ominously polite. I wonder if there aren't body snatchers at work here…

Dear Forward march Studios

No one has a dog in this fight. We're not talking about someone's favorite army or leader, we're not talking about things people are personally intersted in, we're not talking about someones money or well being or God (Napoleon wa s bloody tyrnat, Napoleon was the salt of the earth) in fact the subjects are quite bloodless, emotioneless, also and about highly esoteric points. It's easy to be logical then.

After a lifetime of studying people and history I have come to the conclusion that people do not think logically- ever. Oh yes, when it is something far off or that which does not touch them in head or hart, we can be as dispassionate and level headed as aristotle-- but let it touch ourselves or our own-- then jenny bar the door!

This topic is one which we can be dispassionate on.

But at the same time no little credit must accrue to the principal discussors, all have been able to keep rancor out of it and realize, at least in this rarefied topic, that there can be many competing views of the problem and they all have a large element of truth in it.

A bit of background. In addition to my career in Industrial management (or as we here affectionally call it, "toiling in the belly of the beast) I got my PhD in Early Modern Europan History. Got it late in life as a labor of love. My dual life therefore gives me interesting insights both ways.

Otto, where did you get your PhD? I was looking on the AHA site to see what your dissertation was on, but I don't seem to be able to find you on there, which is strange since they keep records of all history PhDs awarded over the last few decades.

Oschmidt, having worked in a number of different career fields, in my experience in well functioning, solid organizations when things go wrong, people work together to either fix it, band aid it, or explain it what have you. There's no real sense of confusion or chaos, just there's an urgent problem that needs to get fixed and people work together to get it done. Confusion and chaos results when something goes wrong and no one gives a one way or the other, especially at the top, and people start looking to shift the accountability with CYA and "Don‘t ask me, that‘s not my f‘in job." If you get crappy people at the top, you can be sure to find crappy chaos and confusion reigning at every level below. Therefore, what's going on at the top always, or almost always, defines how the lower levels respond and their perception of their own response as either confusion or clarity.

Now that relates to military history in this way I think. If a commander repeatedly 'felt' confused, like things were always out of control, then that commander was in over his head or probably should've been replaced. In my opinion, the vast majority of commanders never felt that way or else they never would've made it into command and the one's who did, didn't last very long.

ForwardMarch, what about pbem Kriegspiel ? Hmmm… I'm not convinced on the dungeon master war game.

PBEM kriegsmpiel sounds like it has potential. I've never personally done one. I was thinking more in the context of a game with players interacting in person. In the military today our wargames were all PBEM, since modern wars are basically PBEM as far as C3 goes…

The dungeon master wargame has one large problem, which is that it cuts out the element of competition, really, between two sides. A ref between two sides would be better, really. Still, if there were some way to seriosuly speed up the kriegspiel/double blind mechanism via a ref that would provide a much more memorable and interesting experience for all invovled. It would work as above, but with two opposing sides. The tricky thing would be creating a system that allowed for the elegent transfer of information. When you talk about command at higher levels you are really talking about information, not actually fighting. There would have to be a way to delay the player in question knowing what the result of his orders were until after the fact. Indeed, it would be very possible that the other side would know the effect before the general who gave the order did.

This sort of discoursive wargame, although it may be slow in some areas, would have the advantage of being able to compress some events into short periods of time. A few dice roles to determine the result of a division level attack over a few turns, for example.

Has anyone heard of any apps out there for the IPAD or similar things for wargames? it seems like these would lend themselves very well as a moderator after this fashion. You could load a map and then take turns entering moves, or play over the net… I'd try it myself, if I had any idea at all how to do program… although technically I did once program a battle tech game in HS. I got an A on it.. text based that is..

I agree a moderator, game master or host between two sides would be better. You wouldn't necessarily need double-blind though IMO if you had a good system for HIP and Concealment.

Id like to thank the posters as well – this is one of the best threads I can recall from many an online discussion.

A passionate debate on a deep level, with well thought out comments that resonate with truth and the pain of experience.

Those comments about managing chaos in the real world – and having to persevere with progress despite the best efforts of those 'above' you in the chain of command … what a brilliant job you did there of describing that situation. We are truly not alone :)

I find myself fully in agreement with each opposing viewpoint as well !

What I am really enjoying most about this discussion is that somehow the posters have managed to put a finger on the essence of why I find wargaming so fascinating, and so relevant to the application of real problems in the real world.

Forward march – regarding apps on the IPAD. TooFatLardies are doing some serious research into this, and hopefully will have some cool things to show off in the near future.

Im working on exactly this thing that you describe above, using Empire V as the ruleset, and doing all the number crunching in the backend. This solves the biggest complaint about Empire in that it speeds up play a great deal by looking after the detailed C&C, activation, order delays, morale, fatigue, supply and battlefield results.

Each player communicates with their troops via web interface, and the troops on the tabletop send messages back to the player as events unfold in the battle. Its been an excessively difficult project to work on so far, but the results are stunning. Have been playtesting now for a few weeks, and Im extremely happy with the way it is progressing,.

I really underestimated the complexity of it all though :) So the release of an easy to install version for download and use is constantly getting pushed forward.

More info here (several articles):
link

Since that last post (13 April), I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front, but I decided then to give up work for a while, and go full time into this project to see it over the line. I actually believe that it will solve a lot of prickly niggles that I have had with the hobby for years now, so I figure its worth having a full on go at. It has quickly grown from a 'cool idea' to an 60 hour a week coding obsession :) I must get it done.

In addition to that, I understand that Empire is not everyone's cup of tea, so I am working on major architectural changes to allow it to be used for any given ruleset by moving the Ruleset specific parts into a plugin architecture. I intend working with the League of Augsberg guys soon to implement Republic to Empire plugins for example. Once that works smoothly, the door is open to easily adapt most rulesets to the plugin architecture.

Money is still holding out well (by some miracle), so I have allowed the scope of the project to blow out immensely. This is mostly in the area of adding things to handle C&C and fog of war – and also adding extras like streaming webcam feeds and audio feeds between users to allow for remote access (across the internet) between players. I really want to be able to invite 'friends' from here that I am never likely to meet in RL to join in a rocking good game of miniatures.

I will try and have a break from coding in a week or so, and get some status reports and documentation on the project done so others can start really playing with it.

Its not a commercial app – its a serious open source project with no legal encumbrances. Its not a competitor to Carnage and Glory either, nor is it a computer RTS games – its just a very different approach to the problem, similar to the vision you describe above.

Hope that is of interest :)

That is a very interesting project. I think there will be some resistance to the computer thing at first. The smaller pads and phones will be what really make it practical, I think. Eventually these will be so cheap that theyll be omnipresent. The real key will be making the setup and interface as elegant as possible. One thing you might include are preloaded army lists, as it looks like filling one in on there could take quite awhile for a large OOB. One thing it might do is to make Empire more popular with younger gamers, as that detail heavy sort of game has fallen out of fashion somewhat since the 80s. Is the program web-based or browser based? I didnt catch that part. Being able to access the battle online and save it if needed would be pretty cool. That way you could save a game in progress ince the laptop battery died. Being able to have players enter information from different devices is probably the coolest function on there. That way people around the tablemcould all play via their smart phones, or, as you said, from a distance. Hw does the program know where the units are in relation to each other? Or does the ref have to 'tell' it?

"F" you, Forwardmarch and the horse you road in on :) LoL. Bout' time those 'failin' lesson plans met their "f'in" maker.

Huh?

Uh …. what ?

Im guessing BD had a good night out maybe :) Looking forward to the translation on that comment above too.

FMStudios :

Quick and Dirty answer to the prior question, hopefully not derailling an excellent thread :

Is the program web based or browser based ?

It is web based. This means that to run a game, there needs to exist 1 computer in the middle, with an operational web server and SQL database. This 'server' machine controls the details of what is happening in the game world – tracks the state of each unit on the table, etc.

The server machine need not be on the internet – it can be a server sitting a local network just for running a local game with local players at the same table.

Being a server, it is capable of managing several games at the same time – each with a completely different scenario and OOB and players. The intention there is to allow for a server to be setup on the net to host many games at the same time.

Each player on each side interfaces with their units via a web browser. This could be a laptop or desktop on the network. It also includes the crop of current devices like smartphones (iPhone / Android), iPads, netbooks, or whatever.

Running a game involves the players issuing orders to units via the web interface, reading (often delayed) communications back from units – such as deliberately vague combat results from the last turn, indications that orders have been activated, dire calls of distress from units under pressure, etc. There are a few other interfaces for the players as well – such as the issuing directives for leader attachments, changes of formation, etc.

Its all driven by a real time clock displayed on the screen, where the players get certain windows of opportunity to issue certain directives … so from their point of view, it flows a little like an RTS. This is not by design – it is the way that Empire is supposed to play out according to the rulebook.

In its current form, the game requires 1 umpire user to control the flow of the game. The umpire interface is also accessed via a web browser, and is basically a set of screens to roll the game forward to the next phase, and get the computer to generate the next set of results.

There are points in the umpire interface that require the computer asking some inevitable questions in order to determine outcomes. ie – The computer may require details on how far each artillery battery has moved in the current grand tactical phase in order to determine which tactical impulses are avail

The interface for all that is simply clicking the appropriate boxes. It is possible to run through a turn without needing a keyboard – just clicks and touchscreen actions are enough to communicate the info required.

Combat results – in each case, the computer already knows enough about each unit when combat occurs to not have to ask too many questions. It will display what it knows about the situation (formations / ranges / , allow the umpire to make appropriate changes, and then push 1 button to resolve all the steps of the action.

Combat results are immediately displayed for the umpire's view … and dispatch messages are sent out to the players, which they can read after a small deliberate delay. 'News from the frontline' arriving the next turn, etc.

----

Campaign type play – Each 'Battle' consists of a potentially gigantic ORBAT on each side, with each 'Game' being a smaller encounter from a subset of units in those ORBATs.

This means that the term 'campaign' is a little vague, as you could setup a game that involves the entire 600,000 men of the Grande Army entering Russian in 1812. Such a 'game' would run for a very long time and generate a lot of smaller engagements that could lead to tabletop battles.

Units would carry through their losses (and victories) from these tabletop games.

There is no 'saving and loading' needed – the computer simply keeps track of the current state of things, and next you login to that game, you just continue from where things where.

You can however 'fork' a game by cloning it to a new game at a certain turn. Lets say you have been fighting a big battle for a few weeks and you want to run through some optional plans of attack. Clone the game at that point, and try out plan A to see what happens. You can then re-wind the game to that point, and try it again with plan B, ad infinitum.

Have not done any work on hidden movement or supply situation for this sort of gigantic campaign game though – but thats something can be applied later on without much pain. (famous last words ? haha). Mostly focused on getting each tabletop engagement working accurately and smoothly first, to the point where each tabletop game is an absolute blast to play.

2 things I DONT want to see in the project :

1) Divorcing the player from the table by making it feel like a computer game. It is not – its a miniatures game with a helpful calculator attached. The computer is there to add to the experience, not take it over. The computer always displays (on the umpire interface) – all the rules and modifiers applied to each die roll, along with the results. It just saves all the QRF lookups, interpretations, calculations and die rolls.

The umpire can override any part of those calculations at any time (if they really want to) – including overriding the die rolls themselves. Some people find die rolling to be a part of the experience, so I dont want the computer to take that away from them if they still want it.

2) So much data entry that it starts to bog the gaming experience down. Minimal data entry, maximum intuitive interface. Good talk on GoogleTalks about good interface design for modern web apps, which Im taking to heart for this project :

YouTube link
(1 hour video with lots of techo stuff, but worth the view)

By encoding everything in the computer – Im also learning every day about new complexities in Empire that I have never seen before. Eeks !

There is a lot of complexity there – most of which translates extremely smoothly into a number crunching machine. Some of it though is very difficult for the computer to track. The combat parts which are time consuming on the table top are easy work to code. Some of the more intuitive aspects of movement and command which are easy on the tabletop are excessively difficult to code. But that just the nature of the business (of writing computer apps)

At the same time, the system cannot be so Empire specific that it requires a total re-write just to adapt some simple house rules. That conflict of interest has been considered as part of the design.

----------

Army lists – yep, very very valid point.

That will be addressed with great vigor. The data is actually critical to the operation of the system, so it has to be :
- Complete
- Correct
- Easily obtained and loaded
- Easily adjustable
- Easily sharable

Big difficult job that one, and I cant afford to be the bottleneck on that.

An open community based ORBAT sharing scheme might be the solution to that problem. No rush on that, as it has to be done 100% right to be of any value. Working on it :)

---

So much for a short answer :)

I will let you know when there is something there to play with. Will really appreciate your feedback.

Am planning at this stage of running something for Borodino come September, allowing players to take some sub-commands from over the internet on my 15mm table.

I should be running that all week, so plenty of opportunity for people to get a hands on play with the near-finished product.

Again, all this is freely downloadable as it is being worked on, via the github repository.

Very cool idea, Steve64!

Now, the way I see 'card-driven' games is really in 2 classes.

The first type of game is like Ambush Alley or Monopoly. Random events that are beyond any player's control. Note that half the Fog of War cards in Ambush Alley are beneficial to the person that drew them. These events are particularly good for lower-level games, where there is an (assumed) battle going on all around the player.

The second type of game is one like Memoir44, where you have to have the right kind of card to activate each unit. I know some people have been very frustrated at Memoir44 in particular because the 'Left Flank' cards they needed for the scenario just didn't come up. This would be like playing Maurice and having a handful of 4AP cards, when you need more like 30AP.

But Maurice in particular at least lets me do something in the opponent's phase (throwing a monkey wrench in his plans that way) if I don't have the cards do anything in my phase.

ForwardMarch, apologies and please ignore me. I was speaking Grolsch and Becks.

I think its about time I dropped the internet chatter, started painting some friggin' miniatures and made some preparations to get to some convention to meet some of you guys :)

Interesting thread though.

"Otto, where did you get your PhD? I was looking on the AHA site to see what your dissertation was on, but I don't seem to be able to find you on there, which is strange since they keep records of all history PhDs awarded over the last few decades."

LOL gone a bit quiet from Otto hasn't it?

You should look him up under his real name – Walter Mitty. :)

Walter Mitty

Lion in the Stars said..
27 May 2012 6:03 a.m. PST

………………….. like 30AP.

But Maurice in particular at least lets me do something in the opponent's phase (throwing a monkey wrench in his plans that way) if I don't have the cards do anything in my phase.

My opinion is that the rules should allow you to do things similiar to what an officer would do in such a battle and shouldn't make you do things that have no parallel in history. So, throwing out a "monkey wrench" card during an opponents move in reaction to it, falls into that bin. Having to count cards or co-ordinate actions between locations are miles away (example: you have to manipulate your "activations" to move earlier or later than the opponent) doesn't resemble such either.

Primary thing I've learned from this discussion is that different rules take different perspectives. I've learned from Bob Coggins that most war games, especially from Avalon Hill, give the individual player the ability to command from multiple perspectives meaning at least 3 links in the echelon. Now a lot of peopel talk about they want to feel like they are division or corps or army commander. That's fine, but that's a single perspective game, like a one point shooter video game. I also think that can be very tricky to "simulate" and still be "fun". Maurice may do just that, in that its single perspective AND fun, but not necessarily what a real experienced and veteran commander would have "felt", but it may be exactly what an unprofessional civey would "feel" if they were suddenly thrown into command.

"the rules should allow you to do things similiar to what an officer would do in such a battle and shouldn't make you do things that have no parallel in history. So, throwing out a "monkey wrench" card during an opponents move in reaction to it, falls into that bin. Having to count cards or co-ordinate actions between locations are miles away (example: you have to manipulate your "activations" to move earlier or later than the opponent) doesn't resemble such either."

Gamers always say that the want the game to make them do what a historical general had to do, and that's why they don't like Game Mechanics X, Y, or Z. But for some reason Game Mechanics A, B, and C, are perfectly fine, despite those being just as unrelated to what the historical general would do.

In what battle did the general have to follow a "Sequence of Play," in which he could move all of his units simultaneously, and always before any enemy units could fire in the Fire Phase ?

In what battle did units have a "movement allowance" and were unable to interpenetrate because the 1st Regt didn't have enough "allowance" remaining to pass completely through the 2nd Regt, without leaving some of its figures "stacked on them" ?

In what battle did he use dice to randomize combat outcomes? (Is dice-rolling really any more "historical" than playing cards?)

In what battle did the general have a "command radius," in which he could talk effectively to Brigadier Schlumpf, but not if Schlumpf moved another 100 yards further away?

I could go on and on, but you get the point: Show me one typical war-game mechanic that is "What a historical general actually did."

* * *

We pick our tools for playing make-believe. Whatever enables you to suspend disbelief and make-believe that these little lead figures are actually soldiers, and this styrofoam is actually the Pratzen Heights, then that's good for you. The more fun and challenging, the better.

And in what battles were the commanding generals a mile and a ½ tall?
Sam, I agree, we're not fighting real battles, but I think many war games try to simulate the decision-making process that commanders may or may not have gone through on the actual battlefield. Most do and have done this from the perspective of multiple commands as that can be a lot of fun when its done right. Ever play Squad Leader or Advanced Squad Leader? There were times when playing SL/ASL that even when I was only playing a company, I felt like I was commanding an army group. It was awesome. You should try it sometime if you haven't already.

Great thing about SL/ASL is that even when you lose a game it is still a lot of FUN. I played one game where my opponent took me apart piece by piece, crap he practically disected my defensive positions like a surgeon, and I'm still trying to figure it out. I know of guys who never won a game of SL/ASL or nearly never won and downright knew they were going to lose, but they loved playing the game all the same.